T hat is how many signatures MTA members had contributed to the Raise Up Massachusetts tax amendment signature drive as MTA Today
went to press.

In collecting those signatures, the MTA stood as a
leader in the Raise Up coalition, showing that we will
work with our union brothers and sisters and other
community members to make Massachusetts a great
state for public education and for all working people.

This campaign showed us what we can dowhen we join in collective action — just as theeducators of Newtonshowed what they coulddo when they united insolidarity around theircontract campaign;just as the membersof the MassachusettsCommunity CollegeCouncil are showingas they band togetherto implement work torule; just as membersare showing as they joinparents, students andcommunity leaders in telling our legislators loudand clear to keep the cap on charters; and just aseducators across the state showed when they usedtheir voices to pressure Commissioner MitchellChester to back off from his open love affair withPARCC and hide PARCC inside MCAS.

We are just beginning to feel and use our power.

And it feels good.

Legislators in the State House recognize it.
People on the street recognize it. One of the fun
moments of the fall was marching in the HONK!
Festival — a parade of brass bands and community

Barbara Madeloni
MTA President

educators, but also for the MTA. “Go MTA!” “Go
MTA!” It was thrilling.

We are making a difference.

In the year ahead, our challenges are not going
to shrink. We are committed to legislative priorities
that include a moratorium on high-stakes testing,
keeping the cap on charters and fighting the ballot
initiative that seeks to lift the cap, continuing to work
for the tax amendment, promoting anti-bullying
legislation, and fighting for the rights of adjuncts
and more full-time faculty at our public colleges and
universities.

Member participation is key not only to thesuccess of these efforts, but also to the ongoingstrength of our union. Our statewide initiatives gaintheir power when we begin by acting locally. Andacting locally — like all organizing — begins withconversations, developing relationships, sharingconcerns and asking each other: “How can wechange this situation?”The MTA will be working with you and yourlocal leadership to engage in these conversations.We will continue to support local actions that buildpower and achieve victories, and we will connectour wins to broader statewide efforts from preK- 12through higher education.

I know that there are critical issues not being directly addressed by our legislative priorities. I hear from members every day about the ways
that District-Determined Measures, student growth
percentiles, performance-based funding and teacher
evaluations have become systems that at best occupy
too much of your time and at worst threaten the core
and security of your work. We need to name these
problems, educate the community and organize
locally to put a stop to bad policies.

Members are raising concerns, for example,
about the loss of seniority about to hit in September
2016 — the result of the “Stand for Children”
compromise — and they are looking to prepare to
push back.

These are difficult times to be a union member,
an educator and a person committed to economic and
racial justice.

But they are exciting times as well because we
are teaching each other that we do not have to accept
injustice. We are rekindling memories of standing up
and fighting back — and discovering that when we
join in collective action, we are not only stronger but
happier as well.

You can read about some of your successes in
this issue of MTA Today. You can also read about
how to become even more active in the union by
nominating yourself to serve as a delegate to the
Annual Meeting or run for another MTA position.
Find a way — your way — to participate in the
power we are building.

When I took office about a year and a half ago, it
was with the hope and promise that our membership
would become more involved in the union at both the
local and statewide levels and more involved in the
broader community through alliances and elections.
As we turn the corner into another crucial year for
both our union and our nation, it is more important
than ever for all of us to be informed, engaged and
involved in the issues that matter most to us.

In solidarity, and in anticipation of many great
things ahead,

Barbara

We are rekindling memories of
standing up and fighting back
— and discovering that when
we join in collective action,
we are not only stronger but
happier as well.

29,074

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Opinions must be clearly identified as belonging to the
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Drive, 8th floor, Quincy, MA 02171-2119, or e-mail it to
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please refer to the guidelines posted on www.massteacher.org.

At a public hearing on the commissioner’s
plan held in Malden on Nov. 16, even supporters
expressed concern about how soon districts will
be expected to have the technological capacity to
administer the tests online.

The needed technology and staff will cost
districts millions of dollars.

Opponents expressed that concern and many
others.

“PARCC is a terrible failure,” said Newton
teacher Kalpana Guttman.

Guttman noted that many test items were badlywritten or not developmentally appropriate, that ittook “armies of IT staff” to get Newton’s schoolsready for the test, that computers used for testingwere not available for instruction, and that educatorswere provided with no useful information or itemanalysis from this year’s PARCC results, renderingthe test useless for informing instruction.

Guttman concluded with a request to the BESE:
“I urge members to take the test before you vote
tomorrow,” she said.

Others, including Madeloni, received loud
applause when speaking broadly against the
excessive focus on testing.

“What troubles me is the narrowness of the
question you are asking — MCAS versus PARCC?
In the hours and hours we’ve spent talking about
testing in intricate detail, what haven’t we been
talking about?” she asked.

“We haven’t been talking about joyful learning,”Madeloni said. “We haven’t been talking aboutcreativity and imagination. We haven’t been talkingabout the moral courage that we study in literatureand in history. We haven’t been talking about what itmeans to be citizens of a democracy.

“Let’s have a three-year moratorium on high-stakes testing to have that deeper conversation,” she
said.